114. Lunch?

Gah!! This time, the drills went twenty-five minutes after lunch time (though they finally remembered to let us go after twenty). With less than thirty minutes to go, they stuck us into the relay formations to take the places of absent students, and even just practicing lining up for the relay took us well into lunch, to say nothing of the relay itself. I’m going to ask that they don’t stick us into things that late again.

A digression: There are few things more annoying than being stuck under burning hot sun during your lunch hour while listening to hotheaded Japanese teachers berate their charges to within an inch of their lives. Get a life, sensei. If I never hear certain teacher’s voices again, it will be too soon.

F. says that she was told before coming here that she would see some shocking things, and that questioning any of it would be a no-no. With all due respect to Japan, this is just protecting something clearly wrong under the veneer of “culture.” This is shitty behaviour in any country and it shouldn’t be tolerated. Raising kids with fear is complete bullshit, and I’m not afraid to call it such, don’t-criticize-things-in-Japan admonitions be damned.

I think I may be a few minutes late coming back from lunch… =) I have no classes after lunch today, which a really good thing – unfortunately, most of the other foreign teachers have classes right after lunch. They’re really being pinched at both ends.

In any case, we’ll be sure not to let this particular thing happen again.